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Fun at Work: Enliven Your Culture

Bob Nelson, May 1, 1999

Water wars. Consider this way to help a group adhere to ground rules it has

previously agreed to: Give group members toy squirt guns and authorize everyone

to use them on someone who isn't abiding by a rule. (This works best outdoors,

of course.)

Make it more meaningful. Incorporate a sense of fun into your corporate award

presentations to keep them from being cookie-cutter experiences and to make the

awards more memorable for recipients at no additional expense. For example,

have a chorus sing a letter of praise, have a treasure hunt or a drawing, crown

someone with paper clips, or create a bulletin board devoted to each reward

recipient and ask for written contributions from the entire staff.

Start out right. At Business First in Louisville, Ky., the advertising

department sends a broadcast voice mail daily with a motivational message -- a

joke, a success story, or whatever helps employees enjoy what they do for a

living.

A soapy celebration. Hire high school students to wash employees' cars in the

parking lot.

Keep meetings on track. Microage Computer in Tempe, Ariz., charges latecomers

to meetings $1 each and distributes the money to those who were on time. Other

companies use a coin bank and charge meeting attendees a quarter for

interruptions, tangential comments, and so forth, using the money later for

team celebrations.

reserved. Excerpted from Bob Nelson's Rewarding Employees newsletter.